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My first hive moved my swarm in this evening

I moved my swarm to my top bar hive today. When I opened the swarm box they had filled the two bars and started making their own combs. I cut all the combs out and placed them in hive. Just laid them on the bottom. Scared I might lose the queen as some brood was in the combs attached to the box. Should I brush the bees off the extra combs and throw away? What do you do with combs not attached to the top bar?

Re: My first hive moved my swarm in this evening

Depending upon how soft the combs are you can use rubber bands to hold them to the top bars the bees will then glue wax it to the top bars and then chew the rubber bands away when not needed any longer. Those combs if they had capped brood or brood period in them are important to keep in the hive. You should correct this as soon as possible.

Re: My first hive moved my swarm in this evening

As you have a top bar hive (no frames), rubber bands may be difficult to use. Alternatives include bending some fence wire into a U, then hooking one leg of the sideways U over the top bar and pressing the other leg into the comb, or making a sort of a basket suspended from the top bar with 2" chicken wire.

Re: My first hive moved my swarm in this evening

Just want to clarify that it isn't my video...just the method I have used to re-attach comb in my TBH. If it were me, I would re-attach all the combs. If it is from a swarm trap, I wouldn't think they have really had time to differentiate between brood space and honey storage. Most combs at this stage will have brood in the middle and bottom, a honey band along the top and maybe some pollen on the sides. Unless they had been in that trap a really long time and were building the thicker honey storage combs?

Originally Posted by Dagwoodzz

Thanks MacNactan, very informative video. This will save me lot of work, as I was going to try to repair the honey combs as well as the combs with brood.

My take from the video is "Forget the honey comb, take care of the brood and get the new hive strong fast".

Just a side note... That hammock in the back ground looked like a great place to crash!